In a house at the edge of Dickinson College’s campus live 14 students whose Spartan lifestyle would make the stoutest miser shudder.

Daily showers last three minutes, tops.

When 60-degree rooms make turning textbook pages difficult, students must feed corn kernels into a furnace. Clothes rinsed in cold water are dried on lines strung inches from the ceiling.

Personal goals are set and critiqued each semester. A few from this fall: buying no new clothes, eating no meat, not driving a car.

Hardships are plenty. But students wait in line for spots that will open in the spring.

It’s not a fraternity, a sorority or the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps — ROTC — that has students competing to live frugally in the chilly, minimally furnished home. It is Dickinson’s Center for Sustainable Living, AKA The Treehouse, a test site for living in perfect concert with the environment.

Its roots go back to 1990, but its relevance is blossoming.

You could say the house is the heart of a campuswide movement. The 2,400-student college aims to replace and eventually augment natural resources used in operating its historic, liberal arts school in Carlisle. From reusing materials in new buildings, to growing vegetables on the college farm, to steering investments to renewable energy funds, Dickinson is slashing its energy consumption.

The college spent $1.6 million in 2006 to renovate two townhouses off West Louther Street. Doors and other hardware were recycled from previous construction projects. Floor cushions are stuffed with shredded plastic bottles. There’s even a sun-tracking solar collector to heat water that physics Professor Hans Pfister built from recycled parts.

Acclaim for the efforts is mounting.

For instance, Dickinson earned straight As on the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card. The independent Sustainable Endowments Institute studies 300 public and private colleges and universities with the largest endowments. It grades them on areas like recycling, energy use, how many staffers are hired to reduce consumption and how deeply students and the community are involved in projects.

Forbes Magazine listed Dickinson in its November roster of America’s Greenest Colleges and Universities. It cited the school’s vow to be carbon neutral by 2020.

Colleges with the largest investments are bound to have more money to update systems that cut electricity, gas and water use. The millions they save is a nice bonus. And it doesn’t hurt recruitment.

More students say they want their school to focus on environmental issues.

For Dickinson senior and Treehouse student Kerstin Martin, a lifestyle centered on having only essential possessions and relying on community farms for food is second-nature.

“My mom is from Germany so I spent a lot of time there growing up. Things are well-made. They’re made to last. There’s farm markets everywhere. My parents instilled in me ‘Take care of what you have,’” Martin said.

Senior Ashley Arayas saw wildlife flee a marsh near her Massachusetts home as it became surrounded by development through her childhood.

“Watching that happen is really how I got into sustainability. It was [also] coming to Dickinson and having the opportunity to take environmental science classes and be educated on topics,” she said.

Arayas is the Treehouse manager this year. She’s eager to dispel notions, held by curious visitors who attend the house’s Friday open-mike nights, that sustainable living must be uncomfortable.

“I think it really scares people. All that [consumption] has been so socialized that people do think of [conserving] as sacrificing,” Arayas said.

Living on tiny energy allotments isn’t as difficult as it might seem, she said. Showering and washing her hair is doable under the three-minute limit.

“I’m usually at the three minutes or I take a [six-minute] shower every other day. It’s one of the easiest things about living in this house,” Arayas said.

Treehouse residents are acutely aware of energy use. They strive to use fewer than 20 kilowatts a day in warm months and no more than 35 kilowatts in winter. Each Sunday, students go over weekly use.

“There was a day [in October] that we used 12 kilowatts,” Arayas said.

That’s less than one kilowatt hour per Treehouse student, a fraction of the average per-person use. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average daily electricity consumption by a residential customer in 2008 was about 30 kilowatt hours.

Soon, applicants for next year’s Treehouse openings will be interviewed. They’ll submit essays supporting their resolve to cut consumption. Successful candidates will have their essays published in an issue of “Leaves,” a Treehouse publication.

New tenants will be just a fraction of the school’s 2,000 on-campus students, but their way of life will do more than their classmates' to help Dickinson’s goal to cut pollution. Specifically, Dickinson aims to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from the 15,500 tons it released in 2008 to 3,875 tons by 2030.

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